Devices (for example, electronic devices) such as personal computers have been enhanced in recent years. Accordingly, a plurality of integrated circuits are disposed on a circuit board of an electronic device. The integrated circuits have the property of generating heat when they are in operation. A technique that uses heat sinks and a fan or fans to dissipate heat generated by a plurality of integrated circuits is generally known. Specifically, according to the technique, heat sinks are placed on a plurality of integrated circuits and heat generated by the plurality of integrated circuits are dissipated by the heat sinks. According to the technique, the heat sinks are cooled by blowing air from a fan or fans. The technique thus makes it easier to transfer heat generated by the plurality of integrated circuits to the heat sinks, thereby enhancing the effect of dissipating heat generated by the plurality of integrated circuits.
Electronic devices have been enhanced in performance and decreased in size. Accordingly, in the technique using heat sinks and a fan or fans mentioned above, it is desired to use a single fan to blow air to heat sinks. In such an implementation, air is usually blown in the direction in which fins of the heat sinks extend and therefore the temperature of the leeward side of heat sinks is higher than the temperature of the windward side of the heat sinks. This is because air from the fan is directly sent to the windward side and air heated in the windward side is sent to the leeward side. This degrades the performance for cooling integrated circuits located in the leeward side. It is therefore desired to prevent degradation of the performance for cooling integrated circuits located even in the leeward side.
As a technique for preventing degradation of the performance for cooling even the leeward side, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 8-222672 (PTL1) discloses a technique relating to a cooling structure for a semiconductor module. The technique disclosed in PTL1 provides a plurality of heat sinks. In the technique described in PTL1, the plurality of heat sinks are disposed along an air flow path. The technique described in PTL1 uses heat pipes to keep the temperature of a first heat sink, a second heat sink and a third heat sink constant.